The present invention relates to the preparation of a polygon mesh for printing by a process of additive manufacturing.
Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has over recent years become increasingly mass-market, with 3D printers being readily obtainable for home and educational use. In addition, commercial 3D printing has extended to production of one-off objects, based on user-provided 3D models. These 3D models are typically produced in CAD software and output as a STL file. The STL file tends to be converted into G-code, which is a numerical control programming language which can instruct a 3D printer to manufacture the object.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method whereby a 3D model created by a user can be converted into a form suitable for 3D printing. However, problems are encountered because the 3D model a user wishes to print, whilst appearing on screen to be realistic, is often not physically realizable. Indeed, one aim of the present invention is to process a 3D video game asset so that it may be printed. Such assets are optimized for real-time rendering, such as by a video game engine. This means that it is not a requirement for the renderer to be provided with a closed orientable manifold (i.e. an object that can actually be printed) in order for rasterization to be completed. Indeed, a single polygon may be rendered, even though objects having zero thickness are impossible in reality.
Methods are therefore required for suitable processing of 3D models which may have degeneracies which prevent them from being produced outside of a computer program.